Protective Forcefield
by In A Rush
Summary: A Nina and Patrick story which takes place two years after the season finale. Slight error in the disclaimer of chapter two
1. Chapter 1

**So I'm Back, it's been a while since I did an Offspring fic. I totally got off the Chris and Nina ship and jumped onto the Patrick/ Nina Ship so I now have my mojo back to write.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Offspring obviously, and I love the way the characters have been written **

….

Set two years after the Season 2 Finale, which ended way too soon for my liking.

"Hey Nina, how has Patrick been?" Cherie asks as she gets ready for her shift in the change rooms.

"Yeah a bit closed off but his been okay, just stressed out about when the baby arrives." Nina replies as she gets her bag out.

"Understandable, that death with both the mother and the baby would shake anyone up, especially someone who has a baby on the way." Cherie says shutting her locker.

"Death, what death?" Nina asks confused as to what she was talking about.

"You know, the mother that had the massive bleeder on the brain that wasn't picked up on time, and when they operated it was too late, the baby was deprived of oxygen for too long so it didn't make it." Cherie says shocked that she seemed to not know.

"He never told me." Nina says shocked by the revelation.

"Sorry, I thought he would have told you, he probably didn't want you to stress out." Cherie says calmly, hoping to keep Nina relatively calm.

"Yeah, I guess, we'll have a good shift, I'll see you later." Nina says as she walks out of the staff room with thought's running through her head.

….

Having spent the past ten hours at home, Nina was sitting on the couch waiting for Patrick to get home. Since the revelation, Nina hadn't been able to stop thinking about why he didn't tell her. Not being able to sleep, Nina had cleaned the house, had lunch with Billie, worked on painting the nursery, followed by cooking dinner, all the while having different scenarios playing out on how he would explain himself to her, one involving him performing a c section procedure on her without any anaesthetic while yelling at her. Having shaken that thought out of her, she felt angrier than when she had first been told about the deaths.

Hearing the opening of the door, Nina sat up straighter in her seat waiting for him to come in.

"Hey." Patrick says as he kissed her on the forehead.

"Hi." She replies sounding annoyed.

"What's wrong?" he asks as he puts his bag on the bench and heating up his dinner.

"Care to tell me as to why you've been so closed off and cold towards me lately?" she asks.

"Not this again." He says while eating.

"Yes this again, don't deny it, even Kate said you've been behaving really strangely and not in a good way." She says starting to get flustered.

"It's nothing." He says slamming down his bowl.

"Nothing, really, so you didn't lose a mother and a baby last week then?" Nina asks as she stands up.

"You were told about that." He says simply.

"What do you mean I was told about that, of course I was told about that, it was assumed that I knew what my fiancé had been through at work, we work at the same hospital for fucks sake, of course I was going to find out." She cries out hysterically.

"Calm down babe." Patrick says calmly.

"Don't tell me to calm the hell down, if you wanted me to stay calm you should have told me yourself, not let someone else do it for you." She yells at him.

"You know better than anyone stress isn't good for the baby, this is why I didn't tell you, I didn't want you to stress out and be worried about me as you do so well, we lose patients in this job, it's just more difficult at the moment." He says while moving towards her.

"Don't touch me, you think this would save me the stress and worry, it didn't, it made it worse, your meant to feel like you can come to me for anything, how am I meant to trust someone who can't open up to me, I don't think I can…" Nina pauses looking down at her stomach and back up into his eyes with fear written all over her face.

"Can't what Nina?" Patrick asks urgently, panicked by the sudden fear in her face.

Staring at him, she goes into the bathroom shutting the door.

"Nina, what's going on?" he yells out through the door.

Opening the door, she walks out with a hand placed on her slightly swollen stomach, before calmly saying "I'm bleeding."

"What do you mean your bleeding?" He asks concerned.

"I've got vaginal bleeding, a significant amount." Nina says.

"We'll get you to the hospital." He says, quickly grabbing his keys, wallet, phone as well as her bag.

"I think its placenta praevia, I don't think it's a miscarriage, the baby was moving around all day and during the argument, she's always most active when I'm in an argument." She say's getting into the car.

"We'll get through this Nina, whatever it is, but let's not jump to any conclusions until we get there, I'm calling Clegg." He says as he starts to drive towards the hospital.

….

"Cherie, you have a suspected Placenta Praevia patient coming in, I don't know how long til Clegg is ready but your patient will be in Room 103 in five minutes." Kim yelled out to Cherie from reception.

"I'll go set up now." Cherie says heading towards the room.

….

"Nina, did you get paged in?" Cherie asks as Nina walks into the room on auto pilot while Patrick follows in after her looking rather worried and stressed.

"I'm the suspected Placenta Praevia patient." Nina says while changing into the gown.

"Shit." Cherie says.

"Nina, how are you doing?" Clegg asks as he enters the room.

"Not too bad I suppose." She says pulling up the gown.

As Cherie takes one hand and Patrick takes the other, Clegg sits on the chair and starts the examination before performing the ultrasound.

"Everything looks good development wise, but the placenta is covering the cervix, I'll run the necessary tests but I think a c section will be the way to go with this." Clegg mumbles deep in thought.

"At Thirty Five weeks?" She asks hopefully.

"If all goes according to plan than yes, I don't see that being a problem." Clegg says standing up.

"If it doesn't go to plan?" Patrick asks already knowing the answer but needing to hear it.

"Then the baby will have to be delivered as soon as possible, Nina has already made it to the twenty five weeks before this occurred so I'm hopeful she can last until at least thirty two weeks, provided she does everything she is told to do." Clegg says sternly while looking at her.

"As long as it doesn't involve bed rest than I will." Nina says.

"Bed rest at the moment is unnecessary, I want you to avoid stress as much as humanly possible, no heavy lifting, no long complex surgeries, you won't be on call, and your only to do 6 to 8 hours maximum at work a day, four days a week with a few breaks in between cases and no fighting with any one." He says.

"I can do that." Nina says as she looks at the ultrasound image.

"I'll go get everything organised; I'll leave you in Cherie's capable hands." He says walking out.

"I'll be back soon." Patrick says to Nina as he kisses her forehead and runs out after Clegg.

"Martin, wait up." Patrick yells running up to him almost at Martin's office.

"We'll talk in my office." Clegg says pointing in the direction so Patrick could take the lead.

As soon as the office door was shut, Patrick says "This is my fault isn't it?"

"What do you mean it's your fault, this is utter madness?" Clegg says seating in his chair.

"I was in a heated fight with her, over something really stupid." Patrick says.

"Cherie told me you hadn't told her about the loss last week, not a smart move I must say, you need to open up to her more Patrick, she's the mother of your child, she is soon to be your wife, you don't want a repeat of Jodie where you shut her out, turn to drugs and end up with a divorce." Martin says.

"I know, I need to open up more, Nina is the most important person in my life, I never felt this strongly about Jodie, and I don't want to lose her." Patrick says putting his head into his hands.

"You need to tell her that, not me, and sure the fight might have brought on the bleeding, but at least we know now what we are dealing with rather than discovering later down the track where it could have been a lot worse." Martin says.

"I guess, I just can't help but feel guilty." He says looking up at him.

"Maybe it's time to change things then." Martin says.


	2. Chapter 2

So I know it's been a while. Well it's been ages, but I had a busy 2012 which has been hectic and hasn't stopped. I figured because people have been asking for an update I would do one but I may be a bit out of practice so please excuse my rustiness.

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Rush but I loved the season 3 finale. Hanging for season 4.

…..

"Have you called my family yet?" Nina asked as Patrick walked back into the room a little while later.

"No, I thought I'd wait a bit until things are settled down a bit, once your discharged I will, don't take this the wrong way but the longer we wait the better it is, your family can be quite stressful at times and so can Kate, hence why I'm not calling her yet." Patrick said as he took a seat next to the bed.

"My family is my family, you know that, I wouldn't change them for anything, I love them for who they are." She replied back agitatedly.

"I know that, and I love your family, I do, but you have to admit they come to you a lot for advice and at times it can be stressful, especially when you're trying to sleep after working a shift, you need rest Nina, you need to avoid stress and arguments." Patrick replied worriedly.

"I suppose." Nina replied while her mind drifted off to how her family would react to her news.

"Actually your right, instead we should just hold off as long as possible with not telling them, they will become overbearing, they will drop in all the time, your right, I'll just be more stressed." She says while closing her eyes.

"You know we can't keep it a secret for long, both Martin and Cherie cannot keep a secret; neither can Kim, we'll be lucky to make it 24 hours without anyone finding out." Patrick states.

"We'll just tell the three of them to keep their mouths shut." Nina says looking at him pointedly.

"Right, because that worked out so well when Cherie and Martin worked out about your genetics, Cherie didn't buckle under pressure and tell you about it, and Martin, he struggled to keep your pregnancy a secret, and Kim, well she doesn't gossip about every piece of news she hears even if she has the wrong end of the stick, your right no-one will find out." He says while giving her a cheeky smile knowing he had her.

"Fine, how about we just see how long they can last before one of them buckles under pressure, if I keep calm and nothing happens between now and when I'm due, then we can tell them it's nothing to worry about."

"So long as you promise me you'll look after yourself and you'll cut back, I'm worried Nina, I can't lose you, I can't lose either of you." Patrick chokingly tells her.

"You're not going to lose me, or this baby, we will be fine, I'll do the right things and I know you and everyone else here and outside of work will be keeping a close eye on me, I know this is difficult for you as it brings back memories of you and Jodie and when you lost your son, but nothing will happen, I promise you Patrick." Nina states while grabbing Patrick's hand.

"It's not even about Jodie or our son's death, well it is slightly but that's not the issue, you know as well as I do something could happen, that it most likely won't play out how we want it to, you can't make promises you can't keep, I mean it Nina, I can't go on without you, I need you, you're the love of my life and I suck at dealing with the emotional crap but I mean this Nina, I've never met anyone like you and I love you for that so please just look after yourself." He says while looking deeply into her eyes.

"Okay, I'll make you a deal, I'll scale back my shifts to 3 times a week for the next two to three weeks then I'll go on bed rest." She says.

"You hate bed rest, you stated when you became pregnant and I quote, I won't be sitting on my arse all day cooking this baby like an animal at a zoo that you would work right up until your bump got too big for you to operate with." Patrick laughs while recalling the conversation.

"Well I know this means a lot to you so I'll do it even if I do go crazy and have to be committed to the psych ward, actually no, I might run into my ex in the psych ward, okay maybe like bird who protects its nest, or actually…"

"Nina, stop, it doesn't matter, the point is you'll do that to keep me sane and reduce my worry ever so slightly." Patrick interrupts.

Hearing a knock on the door they see Cherie standing there with the paperwork in her hand.

"Well you know about the tests we have done, you know you will need constant monitoring between now and when you go into labour, so a scan is to be done once every week, bloods will be taken as well, you'll most likely be put on bed rest around the 32 week mark if all goes according to plan, and you know the rest so I'll get you to sign your discharge forms so you can go back home." Cherie says while placing it on the tray table beside Nina.

"Cherie, please don't tell the family about this, we don't want them worrying or hassling me all the time, like Martin said, I need to avoid stress and I can't do that while they are being over bearing, so can you please keep this to yourself and that includes getting Kim and Martin to do the same." Nina states while signing the paperwork.

"You know secrets like this have a way of coming out." Cherie says uncomfortably.

"I know but please Cherie, we just need some time to ourselves to process this and deal with it before outside input." Nina implores.

"Okay, okay, we will do our best to keep this under wraps for as long as possible but once it comes out you both will have to deal with it." She replies.

"We know that Cherie, and we will when it happens." Patrick says while Nina hands back the paperwork.

"Right, well I'll let you get dressed and I'll see you both in a couple of days." Cherie says as she walks out of the room.

"Let's get you both home." Patrick says while handing Nina her clothes.


End file.
